Synopsis / Summary / Plot
Last issue SHIELD evacuated the whole(?!) of NYC after the Watcher's eye exploded scattering secrets everywhere. Young Avengers Hulkling, Marvel Boy and Prodigy saw a raving woman in 1 apartment building but when they entered it seemed empty. Until invisible criminal Hood attacked them. The intro to this episode says that they now know that he's kept all the inhabitants invisible.
They've been fighting the now-visible villain and they've just broken through a wall to the outside. Parker Robbins makes them pause because he wants to tell them something, but then turns partly invisible and 'flies' away. Prodigy theorises that his partial visibility is because they ripped his cloak. But he can only remain invisible while he holds his breath, which is why last issue he had a tracheal tube.
Marvel Boy uses his alien insectoid powers to scale a wall after the villain while Hulkling uses *his* alien shape-shifting to grow wings and fly after him. Teddy Altman gets there 1st and grabs Hood's visible leg while an invisible fist punches Noh-Varr in the face. And then 2 invisible guns fire at Hulkling making him let go. David Alleyne has climbed up a fire escape to join them on the roof and points out that Hood isn't actually flying but walking up an imaginary stairway.
Angry Hulkling flies after the foe ignoring the ping of bullets. Suddenly Hood becomes fully visible in midair gasping for breath. He's still levitating because apparently that's a function of his magic boots. But Teddy grabs him and carries him down to the others with crushed guns. Parker Robbins then claims that he was keeping a building-full of people unconscious and invisible for their own safety. And he tells them a story ...
His cousin John called high on something but begging for help, and he knew stuff about Parker that he'd never told him. So he went round and found a building full of druggies spouting other people's secrets. He pieced together what must have happened from the internet. The Avengers were fighting Exterminatrix and the Watcher was involved. Then something happened which spread secrets the Watcher had observed all over the City. (A brief summary of Original Sin #1-3.) When that wave of secrets hit this building full of drug-expanded minds they soaked the secrets up. Then he heard that SHIELD were rounding people up so he used his power to hide John and his friends so SHIELD would think the place was empty.
He now claims that the info in the druggies' brains is killing them but if they could extract it that would save them but would also be good for the whole planet. The Watcher watches the whole universe so buried in all that data is probably things like a cure for cancer. Teddy suggests they just hand them over to SHIELD and *they*'ll do the job but Hood won't hear of that! He turns to Prodigy who he reminds them has absorbed all the knowledge of the X-Men including Charles Xavier. And he pulls out 2 other guns he must have had concealed somewhere and tells Prodigy to build him a copy of Prof X's Cerebro machine to read the druggies' minds with.
Story 1:- Black Legacy starring Black Knight
Script Frank Tieri. Pencils/inks Raffaele Ienco. Colours Brad Anderson
A woman named Rebecca Stevens is banging on Dane Whitman's apartment door standing on a pile of unaccepted newspapers, mail and parcels telling him she knows his secret. She's the author of Black Knight, Black Legacy - a book exploring the history and fates of those who have born the Ebony Blade over the centuries. They met at last year's opening of the Black Knight Museum and she warned him of what lay in store for him. He dismissed her then as a "looney hack". She says that all of them became addicted to killing with the Blade and they all met a grisly end. He seems to be the exception but now she knows he isn't.
She was affected by the Watcher's exploding eye (Original Sin #2) and she learned how he stopped a petty criminal in Savage Steel armour and he hacked and stabbed the man repeatedly. Doctors kept the man alive but he may never come out of his coma. And now Dane has shut himself away for weeks as if he's afraid to come out. She says she wants to help him beat the curse. He should give the Blade to the Avengers or SHIELD and get help to beat the addiction.
Inside the apartment we see Dane in his underwear with hack marks all over the door and walls. He's holding the Ebony Blade but sinks to the floor. He tells her to go away because he's got it under control.
Story 3:- Before Your Eyes starring Howard The Duck
Script/pencils/inks Ty Templeton. Colours Paul Mounts.
Howard The Duck stopped his car to avoid a squirrel and now his malfunctioning airbag has propelled him through the sunroof high into the air. As he soars he reviews a memory he's just had from the Watcher's exploding eye that as a baby duckling on Duckworld he was a precocious scientific genius. But this just got him beaten up by other ducklings so he eschewed all learning and just got a Liberal Arts degree. Now as he heads towards the ground he drags out his forgotten maths/physics basics, grabs hold of a power pole and swings to bounce off an awning ...
... and lands in a dumpster with a broken hip.